Space tourism hasn’t taken off, but the dream isn’t over yet

In the next few years, a private company plans to begin assembling a commercial space station in the Earth’s orbit, the closest thing yet to a place where paying guests might one day check in and spend the night circling the planet. But before you picture cocktails by a panoramic window, it’s worth adjusting your expectations.

The project in question is being developed by US company Axiom Space, which is building modules designed to attach to the International Space Station, before eventually forming a standalone commercial outpost. The first of those modules is expected to launch before 2030, with a fully independent station likely in the early 2030s.

That timeline makes it the most credible pathway yet towards what has long been described – perhaps prematurely – as a space hotel. But the reality is more complex.

Initially, the station won’t function as a leisure destination, but as part-research facility, part-astronaut accommodation, with a small number of private missions layered in. Tourists will be present, but they will be rare, carefully managed, and paying extraordinary sums for the privilege.

The early era of space tourism is not shaping up to resemble a new branch of hospitality.

“Space tourism is not driven by the tourism industry,” says Professor Marianna Sigala, director of the International Hotel School at the University of Newcastle. “It’s driven by the space industry: research, military, exploration.”

That helps explain why, despite a surge of excitement a decade ago, space tourism today feels like an aborted take-off.

“When you launch a new product, you have to create hype,” Sigala says.

Through 2023 and into mid-2024, Virgin Galactic operated a series of suborbital flights, carrying passengers to the edge of space for a few minutes of weightlessness before returning to Earth. In June 2024, those flights paused as the company shifted focus to developing a new generation of spacecraft, with services now not expected to resume until later this year.

Other players have followed similarly stop-start trajectories, reflecting both the technical complexity of space flight and the limits of the current market.

“There was definitely media hype,” Sigala says. “But the technology hasn’t progressed as much as expected.”

Instead, space tourism has found its footing as something far more exclusive. Suborbital seats cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Orbital journeys – the kind required to reach a future space station – run into the tens of millions.

“It’s too expensive to be a purely tourist venture,” Sigala says. “Tourism is used to subsidise part of the cost.”

At the same time, the companies driving these developments have shifted their priorities. Launching satellites, securing government contracts and building long-term infrastructure for missions beyond Earth are the real business. Tourism, while valuable, is secondary – a way of demonstrating capability rather than sustaining it.

For Sigala, that shift reflects a broader change in how the space race itself is being understood.

“It’s not a race of who goes first any more,” she says. “It’s about who can make it work – who can go, return safely, and do something that is economically viable.”

Even so, demand persists. Hundreds of would-be space tourists have already placed deposits, drawn by the promise of seeing Earth from above. But for now, the experience remains the preserve of a very small group.

For Australians, the opportunity may lie closer to home than orbit itself. While the country is unlikely to become a major space tourism operator, its geography makes it well suited to launch infrastructure and training.

“Whoever is going to space will need to come to the country, prepare and train,” Sigala says. “That’s also part of space tourism.”

So what does the future actually look like?

Not a sudden leap into orbital holidays, but a gradual build. Over the next decade, commercial space stations may begin to take shape. A handful of private travellers may spend short stays in orbit. The experience may become marginally more accessible – but not by much.

“I’m sure it will happen,” Sigala says. “I just don’t know how soon.”